Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep1. Red, White, Blue and Green-land

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

With Andy away at The Ashes, guest host Ian Smith steps in to make sense of a dramatic news week. Topics include the US capturing Nicolás Maduro and threatening to invade Greenland, new driving rules for the over 70s and the problem with Grok AI. Helping Ian decide which way to turn are Ria Lina, Hugo Rifkind, Lucy Porter and Geoff Norcott.Written by Ian Smith.With additional material by: Mike Shephard, Alex Kealy and Angela Channell Producer: Georgia Keating Executive Producer: Pete Strauss Production Coordinator: Giulia Lopes Mazzu Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.

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Watch with a free trial now at Britbox.com. The news quiz. I'm Ian Smith, your guest host for the show this week, and I was really hoping for a straightforward news week. Just some fun stories to ease myself in. No major global events. That's not exactly worked out. I don't want to alarm you,

but I've just checked the time on the Doomsday Clock, and it says quarter past two. We are going to be sticking to the classic news quiz format. Once again, a lot of my ideas to shake things up have been outright rejected by the cowardly bosses at the BBC. I was personally very excited about my picturenery round. I have been told that won't work on radio. Well, not with that attitude, it won't.

Also out of the window, for the same reason, my charades round. If you want to know how I feel about that decision, it's one word. Two syllables. Yeah, it doesn't matter. And I am very happy with our panel, but I'd initially scored a major coup

and booked the four holograms from Abba Voyage. The BBC told me, though, that they can only do topical comedy from the 70s. That just wouldn't work. The 70s was a time with the lingering threat of Russian aggression, a disgraced US president failing to relinquish power, and an unpopular labor government

struggling through a bitterly cold winter. Times have changed. Now, for the first show of 20, and to reflect the varying levels of optimism for the new year, our team names are, team best year ever versus team last year ever. On team best year, we have Hugo Rifkin and Rielina. And on team last year, we have Lucy Porter and Jeff Norcott.

Okay, so in a story that's been constantly evolving this week, let's go back to the start when all the drama began. So question one is, who started the year with a once in a lifetime all expenses paid trip to New York? It's President Maduro. Former. Former, whatever he is. Was he ever?

Tater. Yeah. I mean, there's so many presidents right now of Venezuela. I'm putting my hat in the ring to be president of Venezuela. It doesn't seem that hard. I mean, there's the one in New York. There's the one that they swore in afterwards. There's the one in Spain who's in exile.

And I figured, well, what do you need to do to be president of Venezuela? You don't have to win an election, and I haven't. I'm not in exile, and I'm not on trial. and I'm not on trial. I figure I stand a good chance. I even, look, I even sort of, I don't have any orange, but I kind of did my best to dress like the president. For the sake of the record,

in Rea's wearing full military outfit. She has an AK-47, which she shouldn't have really got past security. My face is covered in cocaine. It was just, it was so emasculating, wasn't it, that photo of him on the helicopter with the headphones on. And he looked like a kid that got overstimulated at a birthday party. You'll sit there until you stop biting your cousins. I don't think he's going to get off, man,

because do you know why? It's nothing to do with my knowledge of law or geopolitics. His lawyer is called Barry Pollock. That doesn't sound like the guy that's going to get you off those sort of charges. Barry Pollock sounds like a guy that sells dodgy tech down the pub, isn't it? Yeah, Barry Pollock was in the other night. I had some knock-off fire sticks. I wasn't surprised this week that America did it.

that they went into Venezuela like that, because that had been coming for a while. But I was surprised at the way they were kind of talking about it. Because I found myself thinking back, you remember when George Bush went into Iraq? People said, you've got him for the oil. And he was like, no, we're there for the liberty of the people to free them from the yoke of tyranny. We're going to tread lightly on their land. We're doing this for humanity. And then this week you've got Trump today, and he's asked if it's all about the oil.

And he's like, hell yes, it's about the oil. We're going to take it. And if they say, no, we're going to shoot them like dogs. You know, liberty of the people, the what now? No way. and I sort of messed them lying to me. Trump must have been insufferable as well in the situation room. Do you reckon they just gave him a PlayStation controller

and just said, you're definitely doing all of this, honestly, mate, just hold down L1 and R. Oh my God, savage kill streak, bro. I think the moment that they assembled an exact replica of the dictator's house in the stays, I don't think they were mucking about, you know? I mean, if the Venezuelan's got any sort of secret service, That should have raised suspicion.

They're building an exact replica of your house. He's like, yeah, it's a nice house. But, you know, he's got such an ego on him. I bet he just thought that they were going to film the movie of his life. Oh, they're doing an exact replica of my house, you know? Oh, my God, look, there's someone playing me and my wife in bed. Oh, that's so cute. Oh, my God, they're going in and, oh, what are they doing?

Yeah, I mean, the helicopter method, that's very cool. I think blindfolded in a helicopter, it's either, you either get. and extracted or it's the start of an incredible stag do. I love about the regime was so bad that they had to forcibly remove the president and replace him with someone with exactly the same political views. That's very important. Because it was extraordinary, it was only a week ago

that this happened and it just... You know when you think, oh, those were the days back in the slow news time? I mean, in fairness to Donald, he's quite proactive, isn't he? Because what date was it on? Was it January the second or third? Yeah, but it was...

That was four days after they intended. So they planned it for New Year's Eve. I mean, he invaded a point where I was just sitting looking at a droopy Christmas tree and thinking, you know, maybe the toffee pennies aren't so bad after all. I love the fact that it was supposed to be New Year's Eve and then they pushed it to the third because that's what we all do at the end of the tax year. That's the end of the American Tax. They're just like, no, no, no, no, wait, we need this in the new tax year.

We need the expenses. We've got enough. We're not paying tax this year. And Trump's like, what is tax? What do you mean? How do you pay that? What are you talking about? I suspect he probably had no one to celebrate New Year's.

Eve with. So he thought, I'll fly someone in from Venezuela. It was going to be Christmas Eve, wasn't it? Oh, was it? They were going to send in three SWAT teams. There was the SWAT team of Christmas past. And then Christmas future, that's not going to be nice at all. Imagine the children waiting up to see Santa. Mom, Dad, I think I can see him. Oh, Santa seems angry. It's been one of these weeks as well when, like, journalists suddenly pretend to know about all this stuff that they clearly didn't know about. We've all been doing it. We suddenly know an awful lot about oil.

Everyone's going to get a Venezuelan oil. It's very bad. It's very viscous oil. It's like, it's not sweet oil. It's sour oil. It tastes like a lemon. It's like really, really, really bad oil. It's nonsense. That kind of leads me nicely into this next question. Which does, it's worded ruder than it's meant to sound. Who won't be getting the Kleenex out for Venezuela? I mean, Starma just didn't know? It's tricky, isn't it? From a guy that said, I'm all about the international law.

you must be, this was going to be a tricky one, isn't it? He sat down with Beth Rigby, and it was kind of like he was a guy who'd been on a stag do where he'd got a bit out of order, and he was just trying to find a line to block. Look, I wasn't there. He's speaking to his wife, I wasn't there. I do not condone what was happening.

By that point, babe, I was back in the Premier, and watching match of the day. But I sort of get it as well. I get Kirstarman not wanting to take on Donald Trump. It's like if your boss head-butted Phil from HR at the company picnic whilst playing lawn dart, you might just go, well, you know, he's from H.R. He probably had it coming, you know? It's also like, why are all these political leaders so wary of criticising the man who started abducting political leaders?

Imagine you might be taken from your own bed. I mean, Boris Johnson went about to worry because he was never in his own bed, I suppose. It explains why Kemi doesn't mind, don't she? She doesn't mind saying whatever she feels about it. She's like, I'm safe, no one's coming for me. You sort of expected Kemi to be on side of it. You get the impression that she watches Jurassic Park just to cheer on the voluil. Osiraptors. Yeah, Camille Badenock said that it was morally right. Yeah, because I mean, I think that's what Donald Trump, that's his main concern, was the moral aspect of the world. The oil was just a lovely surprise.

Do you know what I feel, I feel sorry for in all of this, is Maria Carina Machado, who is the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, and who has not got to take power, because she can't be trusted, because she's only got a Nobel Peace Prize, not the proper FIFA one. So openly they're admitting, yeah, he is a bit annoyed that she didn't give him the Nobel Peace Prize, which is just fighting over a Peace Prize

is very much as well. I think the way everyone deals with him, and I know we've always said it's like dealing with a toddler, but it's like dealing with a toddler when you're not allowed to acknowledge to anyone that the toddler is a toddler. Do you know what I mean? Like, if you say anything,

anyone says anything about him, then everyone says you've got Trump derangement syndrome, right? Which I don't know if you've heard of this. I have got it. I've been medically diagnosed with it by someone on Twitter called Rustbott 4862. I know people say it's not a real thing. They're like people back in the day

didn't have Trump derangement syndrome. It's a new thing. But we did. People always had it. It's just that we didn't know what it was called. Do you know what I mean? Other names for it, like kindness and compassion, that kind of thing.

I've actually been vaccinated. I think he's fantastic. It sort of leads us into the next question. As things develop, whose oil has made whose blood boil and who's tried to foil the oil spoil and risking putting the world in turmoil and who's recoiling at the blood-boiling oil spoiling?

I'm sorry, could you say that again? What's happened with oil? They seized a tanker. Yes. The question of whose tanker, whose oil it is, that's actually quite a big question. Because nobody really knows. It's like it's from Venezuela,

but it's going to Russia, and it might be Russian, but the boat was from Guyana, but was pretending to be Russian. Basically, it's a boat that is a citizen of nowhere, and thus attacking it is racist. Bella one to Marinera. They were trying to give it

the least oil tankery name possible, don't they go. No, no, this isn't called the definitely not carrying oil love bone, man. We're just chilling out up here. I think it is the perfect metaphor for current geopolitics is the US is literally chasing an oil tanker and it doesn't get any more on the nose than that.

I think our equivalent would be Keir Stama just chasing an empty Chris packet around the town centre, wouldn't it? It's a shadow tanker is the thing. There's a lot of shadow tankers. There's thousands of shadow tankers. They could seize like two a day for a year, but they just seized this one. But it was pretending to be Russian.

And you know how it pretended to be Russian? By painting a big Russian flag on the side. You think it's something more subtle to do with kind of sort of digital naming? It's not. It's just they painted a flag on it. Yeah. There's something very sinister about the term shadow tankers as well. Because I think at sunset, briefly the shadow tanker gets longer. This is the news that the US performed the most controversial festive breaking since home alone. Nicholas Maduro was captured when he opened a door for two pots of paint to swing and hit him in the face.

But there hasn't been a full regime change in Venezuela. The party in government remain in place with simply the... the leader having been permanently removed, the dream of most of the Labour backbench. Maduro's home was perfectly reconstructed in Kentucky to allow American troops to practice for the raid. The reason that our armed forces can't carry out similar covert operations is the prohibitive cost of building a house in this country.

The US have now seized an oil tanker that was being followed by a Russian submarine, and I don't agree with submarines, by the way. That's basically nautical upskirting. They're the perverts of the oceans, and let me tell you, it takes a lot to take that title off the dolphins. Okay, so just as before a country you'd never visited was going to be the biggest news story of the week, everything changed,

when a country you've never visited became the biggest news story of the week. So my next question is, who is trying to stop themselves becoming red, white and blue land? That must, there has to be Greenland. Yes, and you've got the points, and that was one of the easier questions that we have written for this. I should have made it more. difficult, but yes, it is Greenland.

One thing I think we should all be aware of is quite serious to this is Greenland is massive. It's really big. I was so surprised when I looked on a map. It was like finding out John Major was six foot two. But I did not expect this week global politics to become like an episode of location,

location, location. The way Trump was talking up, it was like he was chatting to Kirstie and Phil. It was like, where it's a great location, you know, close to good schools, good rail links. It is like when I go on right move and I look at houses I can't floor. Yeah, filter, gold.

Yeah, exactly. Mineral wealth. Must have rare earth minerals. Crucial point in Arctic shipping lanes. Darling, I think we've found the one. I mean, I wonder what Kirstarmer will say if he does make a move because, you know, obviously we're all in NATO together and it's a little bit awkward and the Danish has been saying, no, hands off.

It does feel the danger is it's going to be that all the dictators just decide which bits of the world they want so Putin wants Ukraine Donald wants Greenland Xi wants Taiwan and it's going to be like PE at school where they're picking and we're going to get left

aren't we? It's going to be we're just going to be smoking fags around the back of the science block with Belgium that's it me us and Belgium going nah didn't want us either so we're going to take it over by a country smaller than us that would be the ultimate insult

do you know who's coming for you the Falklands, that's ironic. I thought that America threatening to take over Greenland would be the worst thing that America had ever done to Greenland. But I was wrong, because I learnt a lot about Greenland this week, because we've learned a lot about oil. Did you know that in 1968, America dropped a nuclear

bomb on Greenland? By mistake. In fact, they dropped four, because they had a plane carrying four, and it crashed in Greenland and they only ever found three of them. So somewhere in Greenland is a lost American nuclear bomb, which I reckon that's the whole thing. They just want to it back. Yeah, can we have our bomb back?

What an incredible TV show that would be. You get four teams of two. It's a bit like race around the world. Yeah. First to find the new, and whoever wins I saw it, loses. Joe Swash and Jamie Lang out there with a Geiger counter. No,

the Danish are the Vikings. They need to dig deep, they need to remember their history and they need to, I would totally watch that show. It's amazing when you do look at Northern Europe and you think those countries used to terrorise. They used to come over here, to the northeast coast and terrorise. And now you think there is not one Swede

who could survive a single night in Middlesbrough. So just a recap, the US have captured the Venezuelan president and seized control of a Russian flagship in international waters and threatened to invade Greenland and it's only the 9th of January. Strap it, everyone!

I know what you're thinking. Does the FIFA Peace Prize mean nothing? It's a volatile situation. The US claim ownership, Denmark claim ownership, the Indigenous Community claim ownership, everyone's got a chance and you've got to be Inuit to win you it. And the scores at the end of the first round are five to team Best Year Ever and four to team last year ever. Okay, so it's time for round two. This is UK News, a proud and beautiful nation that, as I'm sure Vladimir Putin will have already noted, currently has more variations on the Deaf in Paradise format than it does aircraft carriers. So my first question is, who's got chills that are multiplying? And for a bonus point, who's losing control?

Because the power they're supplying is not electrifying. It's cold. I mean, it's really cold. And the thing is, that's what people care about, really. That's what people care about. You might think that the British public would be most perturbed by the growing prospect of war in Europe. No, it's unexpectedly having to defrost your car for the second time in the day. It just feels against God's will, doesn't it?

You're like, yes, NATO Article 5 is hanging on by a Finn Fred, but a second time in the same day. And you know the worst thing is your neighbour who's prepared for this? When you see him in the morning come out, a little local neighbourhood Ned Flanders there with his de-frosting ice and his scraper, and you're there get frostbite of the thumb because you're using an old credit card.

Did you see the story in the Daily Mail about the snowman? This is my favourite weather story. A boy built a snowman and his neighbour beheaded it with a shovel. And then he built it again And his neighbour again Beheaded it with a shovel And the boy put up a little cross

Where the snowman had been That said on it My snowman murdered by the man at number 22 They gave this a full page in the Daily Mail And I was quite surprised that they cared so much But then I figured out why this has happened It's because the victim was white I don't trust snowman

I watched a documentary about a snowman Who kidnapped a little boy and they're singing and dancing about it. I'm like, this isn't funny. We've got this massive bomb cyclone storm here at the moment as well. That's part of the problem, which is why Scotland has, a lot of the homes have no electricity right now. We've got this massive storm coming in.

And it's really interesting about storms. You know that we cycle through the alphabet with storms, ABCD, but we also alternate between a female name and a male name, but they found that people are less scared of storms if they're named female and they aren't as careful. So this time they've decided in order to combat that, we're going to call it Storm Gretti. And nobody knows what gender that is.

So therefore, we are all just as lost as we always are whenever snow or a leaf hits a track. We're just screwed. I mean, this is why. It's all Goretty because they let France name this one. So they gave it an Italian name to try and blame it on Italy. But I think it sounds lovely. It sounds like a pasta dish, doesn't it?

So they pick the names in advance. And so it's with us, we name some of the storms with the Netherlands and Ireland and then France and Italy and Portugal and Spain name the other one. So our names for this year. So we're going to be having Chandra Dave. Storm Dave is going to have his moment. Why did you look at me when you said that?

Probably thought he's a mate of yours. So this is Storm Guretti, a storm named by the French. Just another example of how leaving the European Union has failed to stop them interfering with our lives. Snow has gripped the UK. The Met Office has released a red warning, indicating gusts in excess of 100 mile an hour. One step below, simply red warning,

indicating mix in excess of hooknull. Rail passengers faced major delays and cancellations this week. Nothing to do with the snow. That was just happening, anyway. The public were warned that failure to properly clear windscreens of snow and ice could result in penalties. This includes poor. port-halling, which is where people scrape a small circular port-hole in the windscreen instead of clearing the whole thing. But that's not what port-halling sounds like, is it?

It sounds like a subsection of the dogging community that only happens on canal boats. Now, we're going to ease away from the weather slightly, but we're still in the UK here. Who can see clearly now the rain has gone? Who can see all obstacles in their way? Oh, hang on, they've just hit a tree. Old people. Yes. old people are going to need to have their eyes tested more in order to drive. Yes.

Because if you're over 70, you're going to need to have your eyes tested every three years if you want to keep driving. And to be fair, actual evidence doesn't show that people over 70 are more likely to have crashes, but it does show that they're far more likely to vote conservative, which I'd say suggests an inability to pay attention. The question I have is, are you allowed to drive yourself to the eye test? If you don't make it, is that the eye test? I don't mind having it.

I love having an eye test. Very exciting. It is lovely just going for any sort of test now. It's a bit time on your own for thinking while they rummage about and your doodars. And I don't know which speck savers you're going to. That's not formally a part of an eye test. Does it look bigger? And now.

And now. I'm not sure it wasn't the butcher's next door, to be honest. And this isn't the only new driving law. There's quite a few new ideas coming in. What might kill off the country pub, apparently? Old people crashing into them. The Labour Party, because they don't like fun. They don't like the countryside.

They don't like pub. So they've said that now, even though we've got like globally, we've got really low fatalities by 100,000, they've said, no, how can we make life a little bit less fun? So they're going to bring it down to like one drink. I kind of think there is something. In fairness, like if you're in the countryside, you might not be able to get to him from the pub

because of public transport. Whereas in London, if you go out for a pint, you will have sold your car to pay for it. True. You see that transport minister, they were on air, and somebody needs to brief these Labour ministers better because they said, look, you could always have an alcohol-free beverage. I was like, do you want Nigel Farage to be Prime Minister?

We'll talk like that. Next thing you'll be saying that the bucks fizz you have on Christmas Day morning is technically alcohol. This is the forthcoming shake-up of driving laws in the UK, including regular eye tests for drivers over 70. Moira Hutchin, 71 from Farnborough, said eye tests for all the drivers were definitely a good idea, although why she was talking to a lamppost, no one knows.

Road safety has improved, though. Back in the 70s, people would be drink driving while smoking a cigarette and reading a book with their kids strapped to the top of their cars like bikes. It wasn't taken seriously until the seatbelt safety campaign clunk-click every trip, led by the philanthropist and TV-presented Jimmy... So, yeah, we know. So the scores after round two are team best year have nine, and team last year have eight.

Round three is the quick-fire mash-up round, in honour of Corridale, the spectacular mash-up of Coronation Street in Emmerdale from earlier this week. Two soaps, followed by people too vulgar to listen to the archers. It was very impressive to see the two shows. Combine, fans were able to see terrible acting and unconvincing storylines mixed seamlessly with unconvincing acting and terrible storylines. So, Teams, could you tell me the two different news stories that have been mashed together, X allows you to see smart Lego toys in bikinis?

This is definitely one of those is GROC, the AI of Elon Musk's X. Hasn't got enough safety filters on it so you can generate, photos of anybody naked. It's a perv AI. Yeah. We've got pervy AI. It's shocking. It's outrageous been happening to a lot of women who post pictures on X. People sort of undress them and put them in bikinis. A lot of like really sort of unacceptable child exploitation stuff's been happening. But it also this week happened to me because I did an interview this, this week I interviewed Nigel Farage, me and another journalist, and the station publicised it with a picture of the three of us together. And someone wrote underneath it, Grock put all three of them in fetish

gear. And I don't want to speak for the other two, but I looked amazing. And you're wearing it now. You've got the grok element. There's one more story. Oh, smart Lego. They're making Lego that can, I think, communicate with other Lego and make itself flash, not in a grok way, and play songs and make the noise of an ex-wing fighter and things like that. Yeah, smart Lego? Noises, motion detectors, sound light. See, probably... Just realise sound is another word for noise. Nises, sounds.

Properly smart Lego would be Lego would be Lego that knew to get out the way when you're about to kneel on it. Yeah, it's a shame. I love Lego. Correct. And you put Lego together and you make the noises yourself. You don't want it to make noises for you.

It's an analogue toy that should remain that way. Twitter, I used to love. It was like a little very twee, silly place to hang out with your friends. And now, it's like if the National Trust, turned Chatsworth House into a sort of Nazi Dildo Dungeon. I couldn't have put it down myself. I would have taken a million to one on Nazi Dildo Dungeon.

But this is Grock of the AI developed by Elon Musk's X, which has been granting a request to make sexualized images of people without their permission. I actually tried it on a picture of myself, and it's incredibly accurate, especially considering that I've never publicly disclosed having a third nipple. So Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet, famously said, this is for everyone. But I feel like now he's probably changing that to, let's be honest, it's largely for wrong-ins.

In another technological development, we probably don't need, Lego are introducing smart bricks with sound, light, and reactions to movement. Smart Lego. It's valuable. It's the future. And it's Danish. How long before the White House states that the US is entitled to occupy Lego land. So, at the end of this episode, The scores are, team last year have nine, but team best year have 12. So that's it for this week's episode of the news quiz.

But before we go, the most popular show on TV at the minute is the traitors. So in the style of the traitors, we're going to end this show with a banishment. The panel can all vote on who they would like to banish for next week's episode. Jeff? I'm doing the style of celebrity one. Listen, everyone here is just amazing. And I love you all. I love you all.

We're just amazing people. I'm only doing this because I can't vote for myself. It's Ian. Okay. Lucy. I'm going to use the terminology of the show. I'm afraid Ian, I'm going to vote for yourself. Myself, I'm going to vote for yourself, Ian.

Ria. This was really hard, but I'm voting for you, Ian. It's not mathematically looking great for me, but Hugo. I have also voted for yourself, Ian. I've written it down on a bit of paper. And you've spelt my name right as well. Could put in an extra I. A lot of people spell it like that.

I, I, A, N. Okay, well, I guess that's me gone. Good timing, really, because Andy is back next week. But I am, and always have been, 100% the host of this week's news quiz. Thanks for listening. Goodbye. Taking part in the news quiz were Lucy Porter, Jeff Norcott, Rihelina, and Hugo Rifkin.

In the chair was me, Ian. an additional material was written by Mike Shepard, Alex Keely and Angela Chame. The producer was Georgia Keating and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4. Hi, I'm Phil Wang and this is a podcast to podcast trailer for a different podcast than this podcast that you've listened to or are going to listen to. But nonetheless, I'm talking about another podcast that you should also definitely listen to. The podcast I'm talking about is Comedy of the Week, which takes choice episodes from BBC sitcoms, sketch shows,

podcasts and panel shows, including my own show, unspeakable, and puts them all into one podcast. Maybe I'll trail this podcast on that podcast. Who's to say? I'll do what I like. Listen to Comedy of the Week now on BBC Sounds. Podcast.